I'm on my weekend break borrowing Jaws of Life's Mac. Camp is wonderful.

God tends to do this at Pine Cove... PC puts you in a position out of your comfort zone where you are not prepared and dont really know what you're doing and then gives a lot of responsibility in it. So you pretty much cant do it yourself; maybe you can push through a week of it but not 6 wks. You have to rely on God so your faith inescapably grows. Two summers ago it was being a horse wrangler (I had never done anything with horses before that summer's training and I was full time teaching elementary kids how to ride and keeping them safe at camp), now it's working on Chaos. i got here to find out that the girl above me got incredibly sick- pray for her- and had to leave so I got promoted to kitchen director. I have never worked on workcrew at pine cove, nor have I ever really worked in a commercial kitchen style spot in such a time crunch before. so i have 10 or so people under me and i have to tell them what to do and get it all done on time from getting the food on clean dishes within proximity to their forks and getting done all those behind the scenes things that everyone including myself has always thought just magically appears like empty trash cans, toilet paper and filled soap dispensers, and setting up and breaking down tables and decorations. Sometimes I have to close my eyes and pretend like I am not touching something that I am scooping out of a drain or scraping off of a plate with my fingers. haha. It's all wonderfully humbling. Through the experience so far I have had a scary wakeup call that I am mostly glad to have had. I am not as good of a leader as I thought I was. I am not very decisive, consistent, procedural, or precise as the person that does this job really should be. I had to learn the ropes and figure out how the kitchen functions and how each theme night is run this week, so i will give myself a little bit of slack for that, but I am having a rough time and feel slightly discouraged but motivated. I have to be ready to run a classroom in less than a month! All those traits and more are crucial to be an affective teacher. So I am glad that I am realizing this now and getting this practice and preparation for being in a leadership role.

The other thing is my foot. I am having to learn how to express myself in ways other than with my body- which is interesting and slightly confining. Things are going well, I can walk and scurry in the brace now which is so good- I have to ice it 3-4x a day and I epsom salt it and do daily exercises to improve flexibility and I expire and have to elevate it within the last 5 minutes of clean up every meal- good timing. The doc said I wont be able to dance or climb until October. I found myself journaling about how I felt about it the other day and then caught myself learning a lesson. I feel like I am less exciting to the campers and my peers here because I can't jump and dance or run or play frisbee. I wrote down, I don't feel exciting enough.

Would i be more exciting if i could jump and dance? Would that make me more confident? OMG, Does my confidence come from within me?!! My confidence should come from the Lord and be IN the Lord, not myself.

Menomona (a sr counselor) said in a sermon this this week "Your identity determines your activity, your activity does not determine your identity." My identity should be in Christ and not in myself and definitely not in what I do. Well that is an incredible relief actually. I dont have to strive for that myself. And if I do choose to put that burden on myself anyway, then I am not showing Christ to those around me the way that I should. I do not want to be a woman that is that focused on myself or feels like I have to strive to maintain some "adequate" level of self confidence for the rest of my life. And I don't want to grow up to be one of those middle aged women that has overdone hair and makeup and is still upset about looking old and overly concerned with matters of the world or trying to be some sexy trophy wife thing. I want to be a peaceful spirited women filled with the Lord's contentment and joy and peace and pouring that into other people, Centered in God' s grace and truly seeing myself as that beautiful woman that God made me, not worried about my external appearance or how "exciting" i am coming off as, and supported by a man that uplifts me in those things. I am praying about this- i am far from attaining it. So camp is a blessing. and the girls that I am working with are so splendidly wonderful beautiful blessing women of God! Oh I so excite to be here! Okay I love you all. Have a wonderful week!

Happy July 4th

Mom took fire work pictures for the newspaper tonight (she's a photographer and sports writer). So I tagged along and took some shots too. It was fun- very fourth of Julyish. Sitting itchy in the middle of a flat field. kids and toddlers running around squealing in the dark- so dark that the only reason I knew when that one little boy ran by was by his light up Reeboks. The tone of their squealing changed once the show started. I think parents like it when their kids cling to them every time there's a bang. Like how boys like it when girls cling to them in scary movies. I still like doing the clinging (but not on my mom). The banging is thrilling, the bright colorful ones pop like bubble gum then wilt groundward like Fraggle hairdos. But I especially like the lingering ones that look more like chandeliers suspended from the Beauty and the Beast ballroom ceiling. Those bang first then fizzle and crackle like pop rocks in your mouth until they fade out or are interrupted. Their gray-haze skeletons float away in a train and are reilluminated by the flickers that follow it. I wonder what the scene looks like from an airplane. I bet the bright round ones look like overdecorated birthday cupcakes in a disappearing act- all pit-a-patching below. That would be fun, but I would rather take a crick in my neck from looking up than one from looking down any day. Hey, did you know that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile? Have a happy Fourth of July. Oh- we took a picture of a white firework bursting while a green stream was shooting under it and it looked like a giant dandelion. that excited me definitely.

classification

I sent wonderful Dana a text message that said, "I classified myself today. I am a sitting indian style in a coffee shop with a flower in my hair kind of a girl. And you, you are a doing a toe touch on a scottish highland hilltop with a flower in your hair kind of a girl. Both buttercups." She sent me one back, "I think that is above perfection. Though both should be interspersed with various dance moves. Twirls for you, flailing for me." She's adorable.

"Texan Till I Die" that's a song title

I have too many interests. Mom and I are watching videos of Asleep at the Wheel and Bob Wills': Cherokee Maiden, Boogie Back to Texas, Route 66, San Antonio Rose, Steel Guitar Rag and Hot Rod Lincoln. It reshows me just how much I love this country singing country dancing culture and why would I want to leave? Dang I'm proud to be a Texan. Cowboy hats, ropers and beltbuckles on the streets, horses along the highways, rodeos, dance halls, and popular bars built of wood and rust. we don't snap like new york poets; it's toes tappin and two steppin to guitar pickers, fast fiddlers, skinny bass players and fat banjos twangers. I still think I want to leave for a little while and experience some other places in or out of the US- it's an itch. But I can't imagine not coming back here and I am going to gather every experience I can while I live here this year. Take me to Luchenbach. Take me to Austin. I want to go September 26 to the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Asleep at the Wheel is playing at noon and I'm really think I may get a sub- you can do that guiltlessly t[w][hr]ice a semester. Oh take me to a downtown dive for South Austin Jug Band accompanied by twilight sangria.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8pZvCnjiAbI

"I am only one, but I am one." -J.R. Miller

I was looking for something specific but found it not. mostly because I got distracted by other ones. Ones about you know what- not the ones I was looking for. Either way, I enjoyed reading through them. It is strange to still be able to see two-year-old tear stains on journal pages and to read through life goals that are still just as blurry as they were then and through sin and temptation struggles that are still just as prevalent. On a lighter note, the same little things still excite me. And I have written the same three disney princess song lyrics at least five times in the last seven years and they still woo me and get stuck in my head just as much as they did when I was 17. I actually wrote some pretty deep stuff when I was in high school. Those journals are usually neat to look at. They alternate Jesus fanatic journal, boy-crazy journal, good research and lots of Bible studies journal, boy-crazy silly-girl journal, prayerful and thoughtful journal, day dreamer girl journal. It's like that merry-go-round in Caldwell city park; a different color on each slice of the ever spinning metal pie. Luckily I don't get nauseated. Almost all of the old ones are quite creative. I decorated the exteriors myself and filled them with colorful sketches and magazine clippings, and bold markers emphasize inspirational quotes or personal thoughts. 11th grade. "I am only one, but I am one." -J.R. Miller. me: I can't do everything, but I can do something; what I can do, I ought to do, and what I ought to do, I will do." I guess now would be a good time to go read The Purpose Driven Life, but I'm not going to. I can apply that thought to how I choose to approach working at camp this summer and, of course, to my teaching next year. I will not be able to do everything for all of my students. But I certainly have my place doing something and I ought to do that with all my might without expecting it of myself to do everything. I tend to expect that and then I end up feeling this guilt and inadequacy that is in every way detrimental to my actions, choices, and inner being related and unrelated to both- that is if you look at the subsequent actions and choices as results of the inner feelings. I can't determine whether the inner ones are conscious or subconscious, and I think they are purely neither but partly both. Certianly, I could do a better job of consciously choosing not to. Anyway. So I feel like a person about to be drawn and quartered between four Quarter horses. No, let's make one of them an Arabian. A white arabian horse with some ugandan name like Tito or Yuwer. Don't get me wrong, I am excited about teaching in Dallas and being here with my family this school year! I feel vonderful about it, but I don't think I want to stay here- do I? Tito pulls me to an unknown and uncomfortable place where I can live like mother Teresa and not care about men and being held by one or attended to emotionally. (honestly though I don't think i was programmed that way and i think that there is a reaso for that) Then there's Stanley, a brown Sorrel (solid colored light brown), he doesn't pull but just stands still and stubborn (more like a fat-butt mule)and holds me here in dallas for years to come and lills me into a semi-longing to find my niche in a little community and drink coffee with the same five people every morning for the next ten years. I fear that. Maybe some day this life will satisfy me- it sounds safe but do I want safe? After watching the movie, Into the Wild today, no, I don't want safe. But I'll feel differently tomorrow and differenter the day after that. If I have learned anything the last three months, it's how different my differently is from the differenter differents. Professor Higgins is half Thoroughbred. Those are tall, slim, English horses mostly used for racing. I want to move to england or scotland and be a tour guide in some city that sparks my creativity and artistry and love of tea and coffee and poetry and literature and Music. I would travel around and practice all those accents and meet people and wear my British caps and layer cardigans in the cold. I'd get lonely sooner than I think I would. Sometimes I crave-long-ache for a companion to make these decisions with. I've been reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness" Part 1 Chapter 5, "He said to me, 'Now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor -- such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of man desire?' 'It should be enough,' I said." Sometimes, I don't mind the idea of being just me and exploring myself a little longer and serving God in a very different and less restrained way like Paul talks about in what, 1 Corinthians 7? I suppose it really doesn't matter what I want because companionship is not the decision of one person but of two and if the second party is not interested then you are alone no matter how cravey your consciously or subconsciously choose to be. My grandfather said the other day, that he doesn't understand love. That it comes up whether you want it to or not with a person that you want it to be there with or not and once you get it , you can't shake it off like nothing. It's like pullin all the fibers off a cotton seed or suckin all the cotton candy residue off your fingers then gettin the rest of it off of the roof of your mouth with your tongue. The first one will make your hands bleed and the second one is a plague of stickiness. I haven't told about the forth horse yet. She's a quarter horse and she tugs west. West. To an American, west doesn't mean just "west" it means frontier, discovery, and the uncomfortable unknown and adventure and probably a bit of a hard time. I KNOW i want adventure. I know that I know that what i am wanting is adventure. what the heck is adventure? well the truth is i am really not sure. i guess that it is something that i feel like i am not having right now. well what is that? certainty? I have been living in uncertainty for so long and I still felt this desire throught that. Is it to be out of Texas? is adventure in Santa Fe or in some Utah national park or ski resort. i see, it must be outdoors. yep. When i think of adventure i think of rock climbing and hiking boots and tank tops and highway 1 and tall trees on tall mountains and the cold pool at the base of a secluded waterfall and my bouldering pad laying on the ground next to my clothes by the water. I want to tent camp on the beach north of Bodega Bay, walk deep into the narrows in Zion Canyon till i'm too tired to walk all the way back but do it anyway, to hike into those hotsprings south of Vegas and try lead climbing on a eagle shaped rock in Yosemite, i want to kayak somewhere anywhere and watch horses canter over slopes where the wind makes the yellow grass look more like water to launch that kayak into, then make pottery in an old tshirt at night when the crickets are churping so loud that you cant hear the one and only car horn in the distance, surrounded by photos of people i love doing crazy things and sketches of odd things that I saw or thought up. I want to watch thunderstorms from someone elses covered porch and listen to stories to tell my students when I am an old teacher.
Can I do it all? I want to live several lives. I doubt I'll be drawn and quartered. Will i stay in this state of limbo for years to come? This year, maybe. Soon, one rope will yank me harder than the others and that is the direction i will go. a few years later, will i look back regretfully? Or will i be glad? Oh does it matter? I will be glad. And you're right, I do have a lot more life to live than I seem to think I do. Just don't strap myself down. I know this is going to sound completely different from what i just wrote and it is going to make it all sound so faithless and silly, but here's some John Wesley. Advice to self perhaps. "I found that the chief purpose of prayer in determining the will of God is to get my will in an unprejudiced state about the issue at hand. Then, when my will is unprejudiced, I find that God suggests reason to my mind concerning the proper course." Strap yourself not to a horse or a mule. Psalm 32:8-9.
please give me a comment on this one.